


We Dared To Breach The Surface, Only For Us To Sink

by Flying_without_wings



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Criminal Carmilla, F/F, Police Officer Laura, Tags will be added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 06:36:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7349851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flying_without_wings/pseuds/Flying_without_wings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laura Hollis was once a detective who sought justice for the wrongfully accused and innocent. One day, her choices left her damaged and it cost her the title of “detective”. Now she wanders aimlessly in search of a way to reclaim her title and former glory, but when a series of robberies link to something far more sinister, Laura finds herself undercover to find the truth. Yet, when the supernatural involve themselves, Laura will have a hard time distinguishing the false from the real.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Please watch over me (And be the light to carry me)

**Author's Note:**

> Firstly, I would like to thank Melon_LeopardWarrior for the courage to write this. Secondly, welcome. I really wanted to write an AU like this because I would like to show a different side to the Carmilla universe. This is just a teaser of what could be, so if this receives positive reviews I will make this into something of more ‘volume’. 
> 
> Please remember to kudo and please comment to let me know how you feel about the direction this is going.

“Officer Hollis, what’s your 10-20?” The almost mechanised voice of a woman breaks the silence of the coffee shop in the early hours of the morning. The rich brew of coffee on the table stirs slightly when Laura jumps at the sudden sound.

  
“At the coffee shop, Cup-o-Brew, on Fifth.” Laura has never been one for formalities over radio. The sound of white noise fills the once silent air as she waits for a response. She sips her coffee slowly, enjoying the taste before she is called to duty. “There is a 211 in your area. The location is on Seventh, a shop by the name of Wright & Sons, its alarm has been tripped. A witness has reported a burglary in progress. The criminal might be armed.”

  
“Copy that.” Laura nods to no one. She takes one last gulp of the scalding liquid before slamming money onto the table. She stands and waves goodbye to the barista behind the counter, who immediately waves back with a broad grin and shouts out a goodbye before Laura closes the front door.

  
The cold morning air nips at her nose and her breaths puff out in small clouds. The dawn lightens the sky, turning it from a dark blue to a light grey. Her patrol vehicle is parked neatly alongside the curb, with its windows slightly misted and droplets of dew hang from the side mirrors. Laura climbs into the driver side of the car and she starts the engine. It roars to life and she begins the stretch to the shop.

  
Upon arrival, Laura immediately notices the forced entry into the shop in the form of a broken window. Shattered glass lies all over the sidewalk, it crunches under Laura’s boots as she walks through the window.

  
The shop is surprisingly modern with polished wooden floors and marble displays. The display counter, that still holds a diverse range of jewellery embedded with foreign rocks, has been smashed in multiple areas. How strange, Laura thinks to herself as she browses the untouched jewellery, the glass has been shattered but none of the items have been disturbed. More shards of glass lay around the display cabinets on the opposite side of the room, on the left from the entrance. On further inspection, Laura learns that a handful of glass shards are covered in still wet blood and a trail of blood leads to the stockroom.

  
A crash sounds in the room and Laura’s free hand goes straight to her service pistol. She hesitantly pulls out the gun and slowly stalks to the slightly ajar stockroom door. The rustling continues in the room, the sound of boxes shuffling and bags being thrown about, and it distracts from the sound of Laura pushing the door wider.

  
A man digs through a large box, his clothes are rugged and slightly too large for his skinny frame. The tattoo of a cyborg-type rat on his right shoulder enables Laura to identify the man as Jeffery “The Rat” Scott, a wanted criminal for petty crimes and theft. A wannabe criminal with too much time on his hands, according to Laura.

  
“Jeffery! Put your hands behind your head slowly and turn towards me!” Laura aims her gun at the man. He sharply turns his head to the side and smiles at the small officer. His right incisor gleams gold.

  
“Officer Hollis, to what do I owe the pleasure?” He scratches his beard before he places his hands behind his head, “Why do I feel like this is when the singing animals and dancing men in gold spandex start parading around us?”

  
He laughs at his own joke, only for him to erupt in a coughing fit. He sits down on the knee height crate behind him but keeps his hands firmly on his head. “This is the thir-no, fourth time we are meeting like this. One would say we have a forbidden romance between us, Officer. Sort of like Romeo and Juliet.”

  
“Get up Jeffery. I’m taking you downtown. Place your hands behind your back.”

  
He does as he’s told. “How I love it when you play bad cop. It really spices up our foreplay.” He turns his back towards Laura and wiggles his fingers. Laura rolls her eyes and cuffs him, making sure to tighten them. He winces when the cuffs bite the skin of his scarred hand.

  
After reading him his rights (and after he states that the cuffs aren’t fuzzy enough) Laura drags him outside. He barely puts up a fight, having accepted his fate. Laura contacts dispatch for a clean-up team before she shoves the thief into the back of her cruiser. He smiles at her through the tinted window and winks.

  
Laura tries to piece together what happened while she waits for the team to arrive. He was careless, he tripped the alarm and he allowed himself to be spotted by pedestrians. Not to mention he left all the pieces of jewellery in place, it seems as if he was looking for something. But what? Laura is deep in thought when the team arrives to take over the scene.

  
“Officer Hollis, dispatch filled me in. I see you caught the culprit.” Officer Ward taps on the glass, Jeffery turns his face to the officer and sneers at the slightly confused man. The officer’s brow furrows as he looks at Jeffery, he turns towards Laura with a frown set on his face.

  
“This isn’t the criminal, Laura.” The officer states blankly. He turns back to Jeffery and leans towards the glass again. The criminal steams up the glass with his breath and makes a smiley face using the tip of his nose. He smiles at his master piece.

  
“What do you mean?” Laura questions as she gestures back to the shop, “He was in there, digging through boxes. He’s a criminal and he was the only one on site when I arrived. Maybe the witness didn’t get a good look or maybe-”

  
“Laura. Laura!” The officer cuts off her rambling, “The person reported to have broken in was a _woman_.”

  
“Wait, what?”

  
“A woman Laura. The witness reported a woman to have smashed the window.”

  
Laura looks back to the passenger in her patrol car. Jeffery smiles at her and motions to the door handle with his head. The officer opens the door and drags him out.

  
“Ah, so you finally figured it out. Bravo, Officer Hollis.” Jeffery turns his back to the officers, “You going to let me go now? Since I didn’t do it and all.”

  
Laura spins him back around and slams him into the car. He yelps when his body collides with the side of the vehicle.

  
“Why were you here then Jeffery?” He just shrugs.

  
“You know this flea bag, Officer Hollis?” The officer asks.

  
“Unfortunately. Tell me Jeff, why are you here?”

  
Jeffery shrugs again, “I saw an opportunity and took it. Easy pickings.”

  
“Yet you left almost every single piece of valuable jewellery. Why?” Jeffery shrugs at the other officer’s question. He turns expectantly to Laura and whines out a “let me go”.

  
“Not until you tell us what happened here.”

  
“Okay, okay. Look, all I saw was a woman who smashed the window, went in and then left. All dark, mysterious and sexy if you ask me.”

  
“We didn’t.” Officer Ward mutters.

  
“As I was saying,” Jeffery shoots a glare to the officer, “this woman smashed the window, with nothing but a tap of her finger, by the way, and walked in. Only for her to walk out with this angry scowl on her pretty face and she just disappeared. So I saw an opportunity and tried to find something of value in that mess. I heard rumours, you know, the ones that drift among the thieves and criminals, of a blood diamond in this mess and I tried to find the ring. Luckily the displays where already smashed so I wouldn’t have to pay in my own blood as the woman did before me, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. Well, I could have if I wasn’t rudely interrupted by a petite, gun wielding, blue-blooded mouse.”

  
It was Laura’s turn to glare. Jeffery winks at her before he moves swiftly out of her way as she lungs at him. The other officer holds her by her collar and stops her from attacking the criminal.

  
“Tiny but feisty. I knew there was a reason that they keep you on the force because, let’s face it, your cop work needs a bit more, er, work.” Jeffery laughs out.

  
“Enough,” The officer lets go of Laura and advances on Jeffery, “I’m going to take this rat down to the station. You have the paper work to fill out Laura. I’ll catch you later”

  
“Goodbye Officer Hollis. Please dry your tears, we will meet again.” Jeffery winks at her as the other officer drags him away.

  
Laura rolls her eyes at him and snorts, rather unattractively, at his statement. “Anything you say can, and will, be used against you in a court of law.”

  
“If I scream your name loud enough, will they hold you against me?”

  
Jeffery gets shoved into the back of another cruiser. His long, dirty, blond hair rests against the window as he lays against the door, his breaths mist the glass but he does not use the opportunity to make faces on the surface. His face hangs solemnly and he closes his reddening eyes. _Damn allergies._

  
Laura watches as the car drives away. She looks back to the scene and winces, the Chief is going to have her head for this.

* * *

 

“This is the seventh jewellery robbery this month! I want answers! Yes, I-I know. I am- Yes ma’am. I apologise. Yes ma’am. Okay… Bye. I love you too Mother.”

  
The Chief of Police puts the phone down. Laura jumps slightly when he retrieves and slams a massive file on the table in front of her. He takes a seat across from her and stares at her, his dark eyes burn into her skull as she looks at the file on the table. She places her hands on the file and intertwines them together. She doesn’t raise her eyes to meet his, in fear that he makes her spill all her dark secrets as if he were living veritaserum in the form of a bulky mass of muscles and coffee-skin.

  
His white shirt stretches as he inhales a deep breath. His fingers tap against the wooden table and waits for her to speak, his nostrils flare in impatience, and he runs his hands through his salt and pepper hair.

  
“Sir, it isn’t what-”

  
“ _Don’t_. You had one job, Hollis. Apprehend the culprit and that was it. It was your duty to ask for further information on the report, yet you chose not to. Did you forget that you were no longer a detective?”

  
That hurt. A sharp pain stabs at her chest, slowly prodding at her lungs and burning them with every breath. Laura lowers her gaze to her folded hands and blinks away the tears that cloud her vision. His eyes soften as he watches the small officer curl into herself, the tears create wet trails on her cheeks.

  
“Laura,” he starts softly, reaching over to cover her hands with his own, “You’re like a daughter to me, you know. I promised your father I would protect you, and after what happened on the Mandez case, I felt like I failed him. You are not a detective, Laura, I thought we agreed on that? The deal was that you stay out of the field as a detective and you can remain on the force as a street officer. You should have contacted dispatch for further information.”

  
Laura nods her head, replies with an “It won’t happen again Henry” and she pulls her hands out from under his. As she rises from her chair she hears him sigh heavily, yet she pays him no mind. All she wants to do now is curl up on the old couch in her desolate apartment. Surrounded by various brands of chocolate biscuits and a bag of assorted taffy treats.

  
Henry allows her to leave without another word, he excuses her behaviour and picks up the file. A collection of reports and sightings of what the media is calling Styria Heists. All sightings and reports include one element: a female breaking into jewellery stores, only for her to leave with nothing. The police Chief sighs again and slowly starts to read through the file.

* * *

 

Laura stands outside her apartment with a backpack hanging from her left shoulder. The ancient door bangs against its own hinges as Laura wiggles her key in the door. Was it turn left, then right, stomp on the floor then open or was it turn right, then left, stomp on the floor then open? Laura can never remember. So, down to her last nerve, Laura violently kicks the door. The commotion must have alerted other neighbours because, after a good minute of relentless kicking, she feels a slight tap on her shoulder.

  
“Having trouble cutie?” A slightly sultry voice asks sarcastically. Laura turns around slowly expecting a noise complaint or a long lecture on orderly conduct, only to be met with a raised sculpted brow and a jaw line sharp enough to cut diamonds. Oh God, she is beautiful.

  
The owner of the voice is a woman, in her early twenties and holding a brown bag with groceries (French bread, a bottle of a branded carbonated drink and different fruits and vegetables, not that Laura paid close attention to her, of course). The woman balances the bag on her hip and holds up her left hand in greeting. Her mouth is moving. Her mouth is amazing and – wait, she’s talking to Laura and the small officer hasn’t been paying attention. Laura shakes her head to clear out her thoughts.

  
“You okay cutie? You’ve been staring at me blankly for the last few seconds.”

  
“Yeah! I mean, yes I’m fine thanks. Ah, my door is suck and it won’t budge.” Laura turns back to the door and angrily kicks the base again to prove her point.

  
“Whoa, calm down creampuff. That door could have a family you know.” The stranger laughs lightly. “I could help you, if you want, my door gives me similar problems.”

  
“That would be fantastic right now, thank you….um?”

  
“Carmilla, your friendly neighbourhood door whisperer at your service.” Carmilla bows slightly and gestures for Laura’s keys. Laura hands the woman her keys and steps aside. Still holding the bag of groceries, Carmilla jams the key into the lock and wiggles it, twists it gently and pulls down the handle. The door clicks open and Laura panics that Carmilla might swing it open. Who knows the state of her small apartment, knowing the amount of empty cookie packets lay strewn around the area.

  
Luckily Carmilla leaves the door closed and turns around with a broad grin. She hands Laura back her keys. The small girl thanks the stranger for her help as Carmilla steps away from the door and gestures at it with her newly free hand.

  
“There you go. What can I say? I’m the ultimate door whisperer. It was a pleasure but I’ve got to run. See you around cutie.” Carmilla turns on her heel and struts away from Laura’s apartment door. Laura blinks repeatedly to make sense of what just happened.

  
“Laura,” Laura screams after her as Carmilla turns around the corner to use the stairs, “my name is Laura.”

  
Carmilla stops and turns to look over her shoulder. Her eyes are dark orbs to Laura when she says, “I know.”

  
She disappears around the corner and all Laura can do is stare, unblinking, at where Carmilla once stood. After a beat she opens her apartment door and begins her retreat to the couch against the pale white wall. Her backpack is forgotten by the door and her uniform is shed in a trail leading to the odd coloured piece of furniture. Only clad in a tank top and her underwear, she collapses on the couch and lies there, unmoving. The smell of chocolate welcomes her and her eyes slowly close of their own accord. She drifts in and out of consciousness with the events of the day replaying slowly in her mind.

 


	2. Darling, don't be so shy (I'll see you at midnight)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We meet neighbours, criminals and swim to Atlantis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so this chapter jumps around a bit. Line breaks indicate the change of scene. This is unbeta'd because I couldn't wait to post this. 
> 
> Please let me know what you think and get ready for some fun.

Laura awoke to the sound of someone loudly knocking on her door. The poor object slams against its frame because of the abuse and Laura fears it will burst open due to the persistent banging. The blonde groggily rubs the sleep from her eyes and begins her search for pants. Being a detective for five years, one would think that Laura’s search in recovering clean pants would be successful, yet she finds none.

  
“Frosh! Open this door,” LaFontaine, Laura’s neighbour, bangs on the door again, “our mail was mixed up again. I appreciate 50% off my next bulletproof vest purchase but I’m not planning to be shot anytime soon.”

  
Giving up on her search for clean pants, Laura swallows her pride and opens the door. LaFontaine’s eyes immediately reach for the heavens when they see Laura’s current state of dress (or undress for that matter). LaFontaine holds three white envelopes in their right hand, one has been ripped open.

  
“You opened my mail?” Laura deadpans.

  
“I thought it was mine!” LaFontaine barges past Laura, their nose scrunches up as they immediately regret the decision. A few empty packets of god-knows-what crunch under their boot and Laura cringes at the noise. Thankfully Perry decided not to accompany her roommate on their journey to deliver Laura’s mail.

  
“Don’t give me that look LaF, I’ve been working and a girl’s got to eat,” Laura quickly cleans up around them both and then disappears into her bedroom, her voice calls out from inside the room, “check the basket on the counter by my keys for your mail.”

  
When Laura joins LaFontaine in the living area, fully presentable in a grey sweater and black sweats, she finds LaFontaine helping themselves to a snack, a packet of gingerbread biscuits, from Laura’s personal stash. Laura laughs at the sight of her friend standing wide-eyed by the open cupboard, caught red handed.

  
“You know that’s cannibalism,” LaFontaine shoots the small officer a puzzled look, “you’re eating gingerbread. It’s made from your people.”

  
LaFontaine laughs silently as they take another biscuit from the packet and shove it into their mouth. LaFontaine closes the cupboard before they grab their mail from the metal basket on the counter. LaFontaine replaces the mail in the basket with Laura’s actually mail, including the one that has already been opened.

  
“Do you have work today?” LaFontaine asks. It is a Saturday but the officer’s schedule can be outrageous at times, such as working on a fine Saturday such as this, so LaFontaine thought it best to ask. Laura shakes her head at the question.

  
“Want to accompany myself and Perry to the mall? You look like you could benefit from some shopping Laura. Your cupboards literally house empty boxes and I think I heard them growl at me.”

  
LaFontaine was right (as always). Laura rarely had time to be at home, to do mundane things such as shopping, when she was a detective. Constantly on the hunt for criminals makes one tend to forget to return home for a nights rest. Who needs rest when your supply of coffee is as strong as the hinges that hold your apartment door in place?

  
Laura nods dumbly and mutters a thanks to LaFontaine. The two stand awkwardly in the kitchen before Laura speaks up, “That’d be great. Yeah, I need to stock up on actual food.”

  
“Not just food, you need to get new clothes. You barely have any shirts without bullet holes. Come one, it will be fun to take you shopping just like old times” And with that, LaFontaine takes their leave. With the packet of biscuits in hand, they promise to text Laura the details later, they just need to check with Perry. Laura nods her head and waves goodbye to her friend as they disappear into the apartment across from hers.

  
Sunlight peaks through Laura’s half drawn curtains. Speckles of dust swirl in the streams of light, waltzing and colliding in force to create a spectacle worth watching. Laura does watch the small dust particles dance in the streams of golden light, she watches them in the silence of her apartment and thinks about the time she has wasted as a detective.

  
She loved her job, there was no denying that, but she could have done so much more with her life. She could have used that time to do the things she loves: she could have spent time with the people who mattered to her, instead of pushing them away when her career reached its prime.

  
Now that she is no longer a detective, Laura is free to explore her limitless freedom due to the lack of a detective’s badge. Laura can now enjoy her life without the constant worry of being called to duty. Then why does she feel as if a weight has been placed back onto her shoulders? The feeling does not sit right with the small officer and her gut churns painfully.

  
Her phone begins to ring in her bedroom. When Laura finally answers her phone, after digging through organised piles of paperwork to find it, the sound of a man’s voice harasses her hearing and makes her ears ring.

  
_“Little Nerd Hottie!”_

  
“Kirsch!”

  
_“Long time dude. How’s the wife?”_ He means her job. Laura rolls her eyes at that.

  
“Not a detective anymore Kirsch. I kinda got demoted.”

  
_“I’m sorry to hear that Laura. I guess it’s for the best and all. Dan-Bro says hi by the way, the North department sucks without you. How is the South anyway? Already replaced us with your mistress huh?”_

  
“I miss you guys too. You know the North is my home Kirsch, nothing will ever change that. South has better coffee though.” Kirsch laughs into the phone.

  
_“Maybe I should ask for a transfer. It’s good hearing your voice Laura. You had us worried, we thought you…”_

  
“I’m fine. I am, I swear. I just had a tough run. And Kirsch?”

  
_“Yeah Little Nerd?”_

  
“It’s good hearing your voice again too.”

* * *

 

 

Who ever said that detectives had bad taste were seriously mistaken. Jeffery sips on the best coffee he has ever tasted. Its blend is foreign, that much he can tell, but Jeffery can taste the quality of the brew, so he leisurely sips it. The female detective, who sits across from him in the questioning room, stares at the thief. She taps a perfectly manicured nail against the metal table as she waits for him to speak.

  
He doesn’t.

  
“So, we got you your coffee, will you talk now?” She questions. He takes another loud sip and nods. When he places the paper cup onto the table, he sighs heavily.

  
“Detective, as I said before, I have no more to offer you. And even if I did,” His eyes rake over her form, “there are other things I would much rather offer.”

  
“Mr Scott, as much as I enjoy your pleasant company,” her upper lip twitches into a scowl, “I would much rather discus the woman who broke into Wright & Sons. She is believed to be involved in other crimes of a similar nature and it would be in your best interest to cooperate.”

  
“Oh detective. You have no idea who you’re dealing with.” He leans in close to the detective and smiles, “but I’ll let you go with a warning because I think you’re pretty damn attractive. So what do you say, detective? Going to let me go?”

  
Jeffery lifts his cuffed hands and waves them. The detective leans back on the chair and folds her arms over her chest. Her mouth remains in a straight line.

  
“Aw, you’re no fun. Guess I have to try harder.” Jeffery laughs. He leans forward an inch and looks at the detective. She meets his gaze and his pupils dilate as soon as she does. The air around them becomes static and it pops in her ears.

  
“Detective, you are going to get these cuffs off of me. Then you are going to escort me out of this hellhole with a smile on your face because, darling, you need to smile more.” Jeffery leans back and smiles. He clicks his fingers and the detective returns the smile, allowing her perfect teeth to gleam through.

  
Jeffery waits patiently while she uncuffs him and, once the cuffs are off his bruised wrists, he bows in her direction. He offers her his arm with a charming smile and a “Milady”, to which the detective laughs but links their arms together regardless.

  
People stop to stare at the pair as they walk down the hallway. The detective guides Jeffery through the department, confused glances are thrown at Jeffery due to his uncuffed state but he continues to smile. He smiles at the police officers and detectives he passes them, even though their faces are nothing to smile about.

  
She escorts him out the front doors and he thanks her. She nods and hugs the criminal goodbye, her eyes begin to tear up.

  
“Don’t cry for me Argentina,” Jeffery sing-songs. The detective nods again dumbly, missing the reference. Jeffery almost dances down the stairs leading away from the police department but he decides against it. Drawing too much attention at this stage will be problematic because, even he can admit, he is cheating the system. But cheating is fun, Jeffery thinks, and being fun is _fun_.

  
So Jeffery dances down the steps and throws caution to the wind. When he reaches the bottom of the stairs he turns to the detective, who still stands where he left her, and waves. The detective takes a moment before she waves back, the effects of the magic obviously beginning to fade. Before Jeffery leaves he shouts out, “Smile Detective!”

  
And she does just that.

*****

Jeffery breathes in the stale air outside the bar. He inhales deeply, filling his lungs with as much oxygen as they can hold. He enjoys the feeling of being alive but, as soon as he steps into this bar, he might not get to enjoy the feeling again. The bar is named Atlantis, rightly so, because Jeffery feels as if he is beginning to drown.

  
He steps into the empty bar and makes his way to the only barista. A skinny pale girl with dark dreadlocks and a tattoo of a small injection below her ear. She raises her head to look at him but she just lowers it to wipe the bar down. Jeffery takes a seat on the stool in front of her and places a note on the counter. The barista looks at the note, places it in her pocket and gestures to the back.

  
Jeffery rises from his seat and thanks the barista. She growls at him, which is a plus for Jeffery because the last time he had to get stiches because of her. Now he is left with a scar on his arm and a grudge against baristas with fangs.

  
He moves behind the bar, completely ignoring the ‘No one behind the bar’ rule, and he opens the door. He is met with a blast of cold wind and his arms prickle because his sleeveless, loose shirt is doing nothing to protect them. He rubs his arms and makes his way down the dark passageway.

  
The walls hold memoirs of places the residents have been. Photos of places such as Cairo, Perth, New York City, Washington D.C., Cape Town, Dublin, New Delhi, Lhasa and Moscow. A dark haired girl stands, smiling in some, with a dark skinned woman and a young man in the pictures. Some of the pictures are burnt at the edges and a few are greying with age.  
Jeffery continues to walk down the hallway, his fingers trace the smiling faces of the girl, burning it to his memory as he always does when he walks down this passage way. Smoke fills in from the end of the passage way and surrounds him in a cloud.

  
He can hear them, shouting at each other, playing another game of poker he assumes. When he enters the room he almost gets his face smashed by a whiskey glass. He ducks and it hits the wall behind him, shattering into small pieces. The room is large, almost a replica of the bar but this is the true Atlantis.

  
Many people, mostly criminals and thieves, sit around tables in the room. A few sit by the bar, drinking strong liquids and talk about their kills proudly. Not actual kills, Jeffery had made a mistake of assuming that the first time, but their heists and successful robberies. These men and women aren’t killers but if you attack them or the ones they love, they can become that.

  
Atlantis has become a second home to Jeffery and the people in this bar are family. Everyone greets him as he passes their tables to reach the table in the far corner. A few even offer to buy him a round of drinks but Jeffery declines with a smile, he is here for business purposes.

  
“Jeffery! I heard you got arrested man. Male or Female?” Will, the man from the photographs asks when Jeffery arrives at the table. He sits around the large table with three other people. They all hold cards in their hands and a pile of money lays between them, in the middle of the table. Two of the people around the table are the women from the photographs but the other man with them Jeffery doesn’t recognise.

  
“Female. Blonde too.” Jeffery looks around the room. The décor has changed slightly, lights adorn the red walls and a cabinet rests steadily against the wall behind the bar, filled with bottles of wine and expensive brands of whiskey.

  
“Nice bro, take a seat. You can play next game. Kitty is currently beating our asses and I doubt you want to be the cause of her losing streak.” Will pulls a chair up next to him and the table shifts to make room for Jeffery. The woman mentioned raises her eyebrow but says nothing, she only places an upturned card on the pile.

  
“Snap!” The woman calls out quickly. Will slams his cards onto the table and pushes himself away from it. The other woman, Matska, laughs loudly and takes a sip of her wine, while the other man at the table snickers. They place their few cards down together as the girl drags the cards across the table to herself.

  
“You’re playing snap?” Jeffery asks out loud.

  
“Carmilla’s rules. Every Saturday we have a game day, I still lose a ton of cash here though.” The unrecognisable man speaks up. He lifts his glass towards Carmilla in a toast and she blows him a kiss.

  
“Oh my darling Theo. You should know better than to play at this table.” Carmilla collects everyone’s cards and begins to shuffle them. Her hands are a blur as she shuffles, Jeffery tries to keep track of her movements but he fails and gIves up.

  
Theo scoffs and raises his hands, “Guilty. I’m a sucker for punishment.”

  
Everyone at the table, except for Jeffery, laughs at him.

  
“Carmilla, they are looking for you. I was questioned by them, they will find you. You need to stop this little game before you get caught.” Jeffery holds Carmilla’s eye as she glares at him. Her eyes grow dark as she rises from her seat. Her hands grip the sides of the table and the muscles in her arm flex under her skin.

  
“Did you say something about me to them, Rat?” Carmilla snarls out. Her once pretty face is contorted into something malicious that freezes Jeffery solid. The table hushes over and Matska slowly sips her wine to hide her smile.

  
“No! No, I would never Carmilla. I said nothing about you, I only mentioned the blood diamond but-”

  
“You mentioned the blood diamond?!” Carmilla’s eyes have turned vantablack, the darkest shade of black, and they threaten to swallow Jeffery whole.

  
“They had me in a tight spot Carmilla! You would have done the same thing!” Jeffery screeches out. In the blink of an eye, Carmilla is beside him. She lifts him by his throat and slams him into the wall behind them both. She is holding him at eye height, her teeth are bared in his face and he can smell her perfume.

  
“I would have done the same thing? Word will get out to the owner of the blood diamond, you idiot!” She grips him tighter and closes his airway, he struggles to draw a breath. Carmilla slams him into the wall a second time in pure rage and his lungs begin to burn.

  
“Kitty,” Will warns, “leave the rat alone. His face is turning purple.”

  
“No William, let the cat play with the rodent a little longer. She’s having fun, can’t you see?” Matska laughs as she leans over the table to grab the bottle of wine. She pours some in her glass, swirls the liquid around in the crystal before she drinks it.

  
Carmilla drops Jeffery and allows him to catch his breath. The man coughs on the floor at the younger girl’s feet and the arm supporting him up begins to shake. She resists the urge to kick him in his face as hard as she can. He clutches his throat and doubles over. Carmilla drops down onto her knees and whispers into his ear.

  
“Think next time before you ruin this entire operation.”

* * *

 

  
Laura pushes the lone fry around her plate. It lays limp, alone, without the company of its fellow companions. Laura ate them a while ago.

  
“Laura, honey, what’s bothering you? You’ve been shoving that piece of food around like it offended you.” Perry asks. She sits across from Laura in the restaurant and she sips at a vanilla milkshake like she wants it to last the apocalypse. Laura shrugs nonchalantly.

  
“Nothing much. Just thinking about work.”

  
“Come on Laura, you promised us that you wouldn’t.” LaFontaine says while attempting to throw a fry at Laura but Perry scolds the scientist before they can. LaFontaine places the food in their mouth and shrugs.

  
Perry breaks the growing silent atmosphere, “So, Laura, are you going to get that door of yours fixed? I heard about your incident last night.”

  
“Who told you about that?” Laura’s brow creases. LaFontaine wasn’t home at the time because they work late shifts at the lab on a Friday. There is Mrs Garcia, but the old woman freaks Perry out (not that she will admit that out loud though).

  
“Carmilla told me.” Perry answers, taking another long sip out of her milkshake.

  
“You know Carmilla?”

  
“Briefly.” Perry waves her hand in the air, trying dismiss Laura’s questions. LaFontaine seems to be as confused as Laura because they are looking at Perry as if she has grown an extra head.

  
“Briefly? Ha! You went to those classes with her af- _Ow! What was that for?_ ” LaFontaine exclaims when Perry kicks them under the table. The curly ginger shoots LaFontaine a cold glare but when she looks back to Laura her warm nature is back and her smile is bright.

  
“Are you going to get it replaced?” It takes Laura a moment to realise what Perry is referring to. When her brain clicks she begins to ramble on about how she’s asked management for a replacement but they haven’t got back to her about it.

  
They continue like this for a while before Perry asks for the check when she, finally, is finished with her milkshake. The waiter nod and rushes off to get it for them.

  
When he returns, the fight of who is going to pay for the bill is quickly avoided by Laura, who hastily grabs it from him, and pays for their meal. She insists that it’s her treat to make up for her absence and the other two at the table reluctantly agree. But LaFontaine adds extra to the amount to give the waiter a larger tip and mutters something along the lines of “I was in his position once”.

******

  
When they return to their apartments, the night is young and the sky is a dark shade of blue. They laugh up the stairs leading to their apartments together when they recall LaFontaine’s horrific home dye hair incident a few years prior. The salmon pink took weeks to wash out and they stained all the fluffy white towels in the apartment.

  
“Do you remember Perry’s face when she found them after I hid them on the top of the cupboard?” LaFontaine has Laura in a fit of giggles when they mimic Perry’s reaction. They keep their face expressionless and they state, in a calm voice, “Why are the towels pink?”

  
Laura breaks down at Lafontaine’s impersonation, she is barely able to walk up the stairs but when Perry states that her face did not look like that, with her face in that exact expression, Laura doubles over laughing. She and LaFontaine break down together, on the floor in front of their apartments, and they laugh so hard the tears freely roll down their cheeks.

LaFontaine’s face is blood red when they gasp for air and try to compose themselves. They both sit there with the shopping bags surrounding them like a fortress.

  
Perry waits patiently for the two of them to calm down and compose themselves. The two calm down, after a good minute of hysterical laughter, and rise off the floor. Perry scolds Lafontaine and ushers them into the apartment before they crack another joke that will cause Laura and themselves to collapse into a laughing fit again.

  
Perry hugs Laura, holding the girl close and thanks her for the wonderful evening. Laura nods when she feels the tears rise in her eyes for a different reason as she holds her friend close. She waves goodbye to LaFontaine, who responds with a wave and a cheeky grin, before escapes to her small apartment. She places the horde of shopping bags in her room before she collapses on her awaiting bed.

  
Her small body shakes as she allows the tears to fall freely. She has missed this. The days spent with her best friends, laughing about nothing yet everything at once. She gave them up for… For what? Her career that fell as soon as it took off.

  
She regrets that more than anything.

  
She should have made time for the small moments like these that make life worth living.

  
Laura gets up to unpack the various bags around her bedroom. When she is finished, she changes into something more comfortable to sleep in and she falls into bed again. She doesn’t even bother to cover herself with the blanket before she falls into a deep sleep.

  
She falls into a sleep so deep that she doesn’t wake up when her front door clicks open and a dark figure slips in.

* * *

 

  
Carmilla must admit that breaking into the small officer’s apartment is a little desperate, but these are desperate times. The small human groans in her bedroom and she turns over in her sleep. She is a lump in her bed in the dark to Carmilla.

  
Her apartment is surprisingly clean. The last time Carmilla broke into it, the floor was barely existent under the multiple items of empty packets. Not to mention the state of the bedroom, dirty clothes everywhere and crumbs on every available surface. Carmilla prides herself in being a slob but even she wouldn’t be able to handle living in _that_.

  
The officer obviously took to getting demoted rather hard. Carmilla almost feels guilty for what she did, but Laura was close to discovering her previous operation and she couldn’t have that. So what? She cost the small human her job.

  
How sad.

  
The world still spins on its axis and the earth hasn’t tried to swallow any unfortunate soul by splitting in two. Carmilla doesn’t care about one small human.

  
Well, she shouldn’t.

  
Yet, here she is. Checking to see if the tiny officer had made it home okay.

  
Okay that’s a lie.

  
Carmilla is actually here to see if the officer has any notes on the blood diamond. A file should be around here, right? Don’t cops keep their precious files with them? Well they did in the beginning of the 18th century.

  
Obviously that's not the case  _now_. Carmilla searches through the piles of documents that the small human had organised and she even looks, quietly and carefully, through the girl’s underwear drawer for them too.

  
Okay, that was a lie as well.

  
She’s looking through the girl’s underwear drawer for her own pleasure.

  
The lump in the large bed moves slightly and Carmilla notices her breathing change. Carmilla uses her feline grace to slink out of her room and exit the girl’s apartment undetected. She manages the feat without disturbing the small officer.

  
Nothing. The cop had nothing on the blood diamond or anything else for that matter.

  
Carmilla sighs. If she doesn’t find this blood diamond soon, the buyer is going to be very angry at her little group of miscreants. That would be bad for business. With the feds on her tail, Carmilla assumes they are as close to finding the diamond as she is.

  
Fan- _fucking_ -tastic.

  
The young criminal makes her way back to her apartment to sleep off the feeling of disappointment and possibly hatch a plan to find the ring without the police interfering with her operation. She steps into the shadows and disappears from sight, leaving no trace of her presence in the small officer’s apartment.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so that's all folks. Same time next week. Please leave comments and kudo's. Your comments fuel this fire so please help it grow.


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